


Come Home

by kirargent



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bartender Jo, College Student Anna, F/F, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Hunter Jo, Waitress Anna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2522378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirargent/pseuds/kirargent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every October, Ellen rents a spooky old house and hosts "Harvelle's Haunted House," widely acknowledged as the best Halloween attraction in the area. It's always Jo's favorite time of year. This year, though, she's a little distracted by the new waitress at the Roadhouse, the girl with a smile bright enough to match her hair and a past she doesn't like to talk about. Still, everything's fantastic, until Jo realizes that the rumor of the ghost in their haunted house might not be as ridiculous as she'd first thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alcohol and Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to [Chelsey](http://cheriiart.tumblr.com), whose birthday was recently!!! Happy birthday you amazing cupcake!!
> 
> fic warnings: alcohol consumption, some casual ableist language, mentions of a suicide, some strained family relations discussed, fake blood but not real blood?, emetophobia cw if you're sensitive to mentions of nausea, kissing but nothing further

The Roadhouse is full to bursting, and Jo is gladder than ever for the new employee they'd hired last month. “Anna!” she calls, wiping down a table with one hand and gesturing at the door with the other. “Help those people out, would you?” Anna pauses only to flash her a smile before doing as asked, her red hair swinging behind her.

Despite her lack of experience waiting tables and tending bar, Anna is picking up the tricks of the trade quickly. Jo's already taught her when to smile and give the boys a peek down her shirt to get the best tips, and Anna's got a god-given knack for charming everyone in the bar. Jo included. Oh, god, Jo included. Across the room, Anna works her hips as she leads the cluster of men over to a table, and Jo freezes in her table-wiping to stare, mesmerized by the bright laugh Anna gives as she passes out menus.

Anna moves on to another table, and Jo snaps herself out of it. She's working. This level of distraction is uncalled for.

Well, Jo thinks, finishing up her current table and beginning to clear another of its empty glasses and plates, at least it's almost October. With the coming of the new month, she'll have plenty of things to think about other than Anna. Namely, “Harvelle's Haunted House.” They open the first weekend of October, and run all the way through Halloween. They'll have a work party to set everything up—smoke machines, ghostly hologram projections, spiders on strings to drop from the ceilings—and then they'll dress up in their bloodiest, most terrifying costumes, and jump out at unsuspecting patrons. It's famous in the area as the best haunted house you'll find in a five hundred mile radius.

Jo loves it. The reclaiming of monsters as fun rather than as the horrible, real-life threats that she hunts when Mom lets her is exhilarating—and besides, growing up in the life has given Jo an inside perspective on the scariest things out there. She's damn good at scaring people. And, Mom always makes pumpkin pie for the workers at the end of the night, and Mom makes the best pumpkin pie in the world. For Jo, at least, the Halloween season definitely surpasses Christmas as the “most wonderful time of the year.”

Finishing up her table-clearing, Jo heads back behind the bar where she usually stays, figuring Anna can handle herself now that the rush has died down. Ash would be here to help, but he's busy digging all the technological crap he needs for the haunted house from the basement, where it's stored in a disorganized heap the rest of the year. So tonight it's just Anna, walking quickly between tables and flashing her bright smile in all directions. Jo rests her elbow on the bar, leaning her chin on her hand. Anna looks beautiful in the black clothing Ellen makes them all wear; her dark eyes shine in the low lighting of the bar.

A chorus of scraping barstools and mindless chatter accompanies a group of four girls as they take seats at the bar, forcing Jo's attention back to her job where it should be. They look to be around college-age. For a moment, Jo is caught up wondering if they go to school in town, and if any of them share any classes with Anna; she doesn't know what classes Anna is taking, only that she is. The girls order their drinks, and Jo sets about mixing them, reminding herself that the way to go about getting to know someone is to hang out with them, not to ask random strangers if they know that adorable redhead over there serving drinks.

“What brings you girls to a bar on a Sunday night?” Jo asks conversationally, passing out drinks.

A mix of answers comes in response, the general consensus of which is “we had nothing better to do.”

“All right,” Jo says, “that works.” A small, colorful handout resting on the bar catches her eye, and she smiles, picking it up. “Hey, if you girls find yourselves without plans next month, you should stop by our haunted house. It's gonna be great this year.” One of the girls accepts the offered advertisement, and all of them lean in to read it. Ash designed the thing, and it's damn good: a black background; red lettering; a spooky-looking cartoon house looming up behind the words.

“Ohh,” one of the girls says. “It's at the old Waldren house? I heard that place is actually haunted.”

Two of her friends laugh, but the third is nodding. “Yeah, me too,” she says, expression serious. “You know it's been abandoned for years?” Noticing everyone's eyes on her, she takes a sip of her drink, then leans in as if about to spill a secret. “The way I heard it, that property changed ownership at least four times in its last ten years of use. My friend's cousin knew the kid who lived there last—said they left 'cause they kept getting these weird cold spots and their lights would flicker all the time. No, I know—just sounds like an old house, right?” Her friends all lean in; Jo, who tends to listen to ghost stories for their sheer laughable inaccuracies, finds her interest captured by the legitimate ghost signs in this particular tale. “My friend's cousin slept in the room in the far corner of the upper floor—always cold up there, lights always flickering—and he says he _saw_ the ghost.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What'd it look like?”

The girl smiles, leaning back in her chair. “He said it was a young woman. Pretty, but like, sad, you know?” She shakes her head. “Anyway, apparently she thought my friend's cousin was like, her lost-long son or some crap, because she kept calling him 'Joseph' and begging him not to run away again.” She shakes her head again, shrugs. “I'm kind of a skeptic, but I swear I've never seen this kid pull off a prank before. Maybe somebody was pulling a trick on _him_ , I don't know—but he sure believed he saw a ghost in that house.”

There's a brief moment where none of the five of them speak. For her part, Jo is caught up in sudden apprehensive wonder about the likelihood of the Waldren house really being haunted. Wouldn't that be something? The ghost-hunters renting a place with a real ghost for their faux-haunted house?

Then the four girls derail into a discussion of their Halloween costumes, and when they should stop by Harvelle's Haunted House, and who they should prank on Halloween, and Jo takes a step away to help another patron.

The night goes by in a slow drag of faces and loud conversation and countless drinks and tips, and when the last customers are out the door and Anna starts clearing the last tables, Jo sees her own tiredness mirrored in Anna's motions. “You'll get used to it,” she says, leaning on the bar. Blinking, Anna looks up.

“Get used to what?”

Jo waves a hand. “The people. The noise. How quiet it gets and how tired you feel when it's all over for the night.”

Back to clearing tables, Anna shakes her head, smiling. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Jo says decisively.

Anna grabs a rag and starts wiping tables down, and Jo continues to put off her own end-of-the-day duties in favor of watching her.

“This isn't,” Anna says, gesturing at the bar in general, “the kind of work I'm used to, I guess.” She hesitates. “I think...” she says slowly, pausing in her work, “I think I like it better. The laughter and the smiles and the warm food—it's just so _alive_ in here.”

Jo raises her eyebrows. “What kinda work _are_ you used to?” she asks. “What could be so bad that you think being a waitress is fun?”

Anna hesitates a moment, lips parted and eyes wide. Then her face closes off, as sudden and complete as a door being closed. The smile tinting her lips disappears; she goes back to wiping down the tables, finishing one and moving to another. She gives studious attention to her work.

Jo is struck with the sudden feeling of no longer being welcome, which is ridiculous, because this is her mom's damn bar. Frustrated, she heads over to the cash register, and gets on with her own work.

Imbued as she is with sudden, cold motivation, Anna finishes her cleaning quickly, replaces the apron around her waist on its hook behind the bar, and grabs her things before Jo has even finished tallying the night's business.

“Hey,” she calls, as Anna's heading for the door. “You wanna stay for a drink or something? I can still pull out a couple more beers.” Shoulders stiff, Anna doesn't turn. Jo's fingers wiggle in mid-air with agitation. “Look, I'm sorry about... uh, whatever I did. I didn't mean to be nosy, or anything.”

When Anna turns back, there's a small, tight smile on her lips. “Not tonight,” she says, “but thank you. And it's really okay.” She shakes her head, her smile getting a little easier. “Not a big deal. You didn't do anything wrong; I overreacted.”

“Okay,” Jo says, a little uncertain. For a moment longer, Anna keeps smiling at her; then she waves a little, turns, and forges off into the cool night. Jo is left standing behind the bar, her confusion not entirely soothed, with several more tasks to complete before she can close up and head home.

—

An evening class—the subject of which Jo is clueless about—occupies Anna's time every Monday night, leaving Jo's lingering feeling of having somehow fucked up unresolved for another night. She smiles, serves drinks, makes her usual impressive wad of tips, and feels a lingering undercurrent of frustrated unease the whole night through.

Both a Tuesday morning text from Ash asking her to go measure the hallways of the Waldren house and an email from her mom's boyfriend asking if she's free for coffee make her suspect she hasn't been as subtle about her weird disappointedness as she'd thought. She taps out quick text to Victor: _can't do coffee, but I'll be at the Waldren place on Sixth Ave in a couple hours. meet me?_ , and cleans the Roadhouse bathrooms (nasty, as usual) before hopping into the shower and sliding on some overalls. Then, sticking a tape measure in one of her big pockets and grabbing the keys to her sad beater of a truck, she heads out on Ash's errand.

There aren't many cars on the road with her; the drive goes quickly. The streets are damp with last night's rain, leaving the fallen leaves by the roadside thick and bedraggled with wet mud. The skies are gray, but bright. Even inside the car, Jo thinks she can just smell the _fall_ ness of everything.

Victor is waiting for her, standing at the foot of the front steps with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He waves as she pulls into the driveway. She waves back as she climbs out of the car, smiling.

“Hey, Victor.”

He nods at her. “Jo. How's everything going?”

“Good, yeah. You?”

Another nod. “Good.”

“Great,” Jo says, and sets to work picking the lock on the front door. They don't technically start renting the place until Saturday—hence the big work party, a last minute effort to get everything done. No one's leasing the place right now, though, so really there's no reason she shouldn't be breaking in. Except for, like. Laws, and all that. But seriously, is it such a crime to take a few measurements uninvited?

The lock gives under Jo's practiced attention, and she grins up at Victor, who shakes his head and looks away.

“I didn't see this,” he says, shaking his head. HIs vision is still fixed at some point up in the sky in the opposite direction of Jo. “I didn't witness you commit any illegal action that would've required me, as an officer of the law, to arrest you.”

Jo laughs, and holds the door open for him.

Things sure have been easier lately, with mom dating the police chief and all. Victor used to be number one on the spot whenever the Harvelles had a peace-disturbing mishap of the supernatural sort—he's still a stickler for rules, but it's not like he's gonna send his girlfriend's daughter to jail for something trivial and explainable.

They walk into the big, empty house, and Jo's eyes soon begin to feel dry with how wide open she's holding them. This is gonna be _fantastic_. It didn't look like much from outside, but they can fix that with decorations; and _inside_ , _man_. It's all old, scratched wood and long dark hallways. The air is stale and chilled and motionless. Windows let in the cold gray light of the morning, but filtered through the cracks and the grime, it just makes the shadows longer and the corners more foreboding.

Jo lets loose a low whistle, and it echoes eerily.

She turns to Victor, grinning. “This is gonna be _awesome_.”

Victor indulges her with one of his small smiles. Then it fades a little, his eyebrows raising as if something's just occurred to him. “I don't need to worry about you guys bringing a _real_ ghost in here for authenticity, do I?”

Jo snorts, at that. She'd forgotten that while this is the second Halloween since he started dating mom, it's the first one since she'd filled him in about all the things that go bump in the night. Jo shakes her head, mouth still curved with laughter. “No way, man. This house is for fun. Ghosts are not fun.”

“You really can't blame me for asking,” Victor says.

“Fair point,” Jo concedes. “Although, you know what I heard the other day?”

Victor's eyebrows lift again.

“We got some girls in the bar saying this house is actually haunted.”

Victor's eyebrows climb higher. If Jo didn't know how dedicated he was to always appearing as authoritative and in control as a police chief should be, she'd say he looked a little unnerved. “You guys have tests for that stuff though, right? You've checked this place out?”

Jo laughs again, pulling out her tape measure. “Yeah, we've checked it out. Everything's clean.” She doesn't mention that the power lines outside whacked the EMF detector too much for a clear reading in the far room upstairs. There's no need to worry him. And seriously, what are the chances of an actual ghost being up there? They'd have noticed the cold spots, or the string of killings in the newspapers. There's totally no way.

Right?

“Hey, hold the end of this, will you?” Jo asks, holding out the metal tip of the tape measure. Without verbal response, Victor grabs it and lines it up with the edge of the wall, holding it still while Jo unravels it down the hallway, heading deeper into the shadowy insides of the house. She grabs a pen, scribbles the measurement on her hand, and walks back towards Victor. The tape measure whirs as it re-ravels itself.

“All right, upstairs,” Jo prompts. Victor follows her in pursuit of the staircase, which, when they find It, is wonderfully creaky and questionably structurally sound.

“If I fall and break a leg, you're paying my medical bills,” Victor grumbles. He takes the first step, and it gives an ominous, obliging creak. Victor gives Jo, a few stairs ahead of him, a pointed look, and she laughs.

“Yeah, whatever,” she agrees.

They make it safely up the staircase and find another hallway to measure. The air on the second floor is thick and dusty; there's an underlying smell of old wood. This might be the best place they've rented yet—maybe even better than that old mansion way out in the county. Well, no, not better than the mansion. Nothing will probably ever beat that place. But damn, this place has some serious potential.

“Hey,” Jo says, rolling out the tape measure. “My mom put you up to this?”

“Not at all. Actually, she doesn't even know I'm here.”

Jo raises an eyebrow. “Then why are you here?”

Victor hesitates long enough for Jo to reach the end of the hallway, mark down the measurement, and start walking back, which is unlike Victor.

“Come on,” she prods. “Spill. What's got you actin' so weird? You're not breaking up with my mom, are you? 'Cause just so you know, I might have to beat you up.”

Victor gives her a slim smile, shaking his head. “You think you could take me?”

Sizing him up, Jo nods. “Yeah. Definitely. You're big, but you're old, so I've got the advantage.”

Victor chuckles, looking at her with something like fondness in his eyes. Because that's sappy, and gross, and a little too familial for comfort, Jo gives him a pointed look that says “ _Stop stalling, old man._ ”

Victor must receive her optic message, because he sighs. “Well, I'm not planning to break up with your mom. The opposite, actually.” He pulls something small and black and cubic from his pocket, and Jo's eyes go wide.

“Whoa,” she says. “No way. Really?”

Victor flips open the box. His big, deft fingers, most familiar with guns and handcuffs and beer bottles, cradle the black velvet with utmost care. The ring inside the box catches the flecks of light that have made it this far into the house, and it sparkles a little under Jo's eyes, even though the clear jewel is tiny.

“Is that... is that _real_?”

Victor's smile is as bashful as Jo's ever seen it. “You think she'll hate it? I mean, knowing your mom, I almost went for a plain silver band...” He shakes his head. “I don't know, if a diamond is small enough to be within my budget, surely it's not too big for her, right?” Seriously, this is the most uncertain Jo's ever seen the man look. This is fantastic. This is wonderful. She's got a smile on her face and she can't seem to make it go away.

“She's gonna love it,” Jo says enthusiastically.

“You think so?”

Jo nods vigorously. “Absolutely. I mean, honestly? I think for you she'd wear whatever big-ass jewel you gave her.” A disgusting, sentimental, lovey-dovey look starts to overtake Victor's face, and Jo shakes her head. “Uh uh,” she says, “no. We are not gonna get all emotional and hug and cry.”

Victor shakes his head, getting his sappy smile under control. “Of course not,” he says obligingly, and they move on.

It's not until they're headed back down the life-risking stairs and out the door that Victor says, “Hey, why would you think your mom put me up to this? Something goin' on with you?”

Jo grits her teeth together. “Nope!” she says, all false brightness. “Anyway, it was great to see you. Catch you later!” But Victor's strong, sure hand wraps around her upper arm before she can get away. She shrugs him off, even though he's not holding her that tightly, and he lets her as soon as it's clear she's not gonna bolt for it. He looks at her, right eyebrow raised, and damn him for having so perfected such an imposing expression.

Jo sighs. “Okay, fine.” She kicks at a stray leaf clinging wet and sad to the wood of the porch. “Maybe there's, uh. Maybe there's something up.”

Victor just keeps staring, giving her no help at all. Not a follow-up question, not any prompt beyond his stupid, Intimidating Police Officer stare.

Jo huffs, and crosses her arms tightly around herself like she's cold, and says, “Okay, _fine_. It's a girl, if you have to know.”

Victor's raised eyebrow doesn't drop a single notch. “What's her name?”

“What's it to you?” Jo asks hotly.

Victor's left eyebrow lifts to match his right. His expression says, “ _Really? That much hostility was necessary?_ ”

Jo sighs again. “Anna,” she admits. She kicks at the porch again. “She's a new waitress at the Roadhouse.”

“And?”

“Ugh, and I might be just a little bit in love with her, okay? Can I go now?”

“Okay, so you're in love with her.”

Jo feels heat spread up her neck. “Don't. Don't say that. I just... like her, is all.”

“So you like her. What are you gonna do about it?”

“Says the guy who took two _years_ to propose to my mom.”

“Says the guy who's got a ring in his pocket.”

Jo resists the urge to stomp her foot. She grinds her back teeth together. “Fine. Fine. I don't know what I'm gonna do about it, okay? She's gorgeous, and she's in college getting a degree that'll let her actually make something of her life, and I think she hates me, anyway.”

“I doubt she _hates_ you,” Victor pacifies. “Sure, you can be as annoying as hell—” Jo glares at him, but he ignores her “—but hate is a strong word.”

Jo shakes her head, and Victor sighs, crossing his own arms in thicker, stronger imitation of hers. “All right, tell me what you did to make her hate you so much, 'cause I'm comin' up empty.”

“I don't know,” Jo grumbles. “All I did was ask her what she did before she moved here, and she just got all... cold and unhappy.”

“So, maybe she just doesn't like talking about her past,” Victor says, shrugging. “I'm sure she doesn't hate you. Just don't bring it up again, ask her about something else, and you'll be fine.”

“All right, whatever you say, old man.”

Victor raises his eyebrows again. “If I recall correctly, you were just telling this old man that he could get _your_ mother to accept a giant diamond ring. I wouldn't go knockin' my love advice so fast, I was you.”

Jo chuckles, and whacks him lightly on the arm, and they walk to their respective cars and part ways.

  


When evening rolls around and the Roadhouse's doors will be opening in half an hour, Anna shows up, cheeks wind-pinked and eyes as bright as ever, and Jo feels like she's just taken off a heavy backpack from her shoulders even before Anna turns her mesmerizingly cheery smile in her direction.

“Hello,” she says warmly, shedding her coat and her bag behind the bar.

“Hey,” Jo says, watching from her perch on the bar as Anna washes streaks of intense color from her long hands. A pathetic “So, you're not mad at me?” rests on the tip of Jo's tongue; she overrides it with: “You taking a finger-painting class or something?” When Anna laughs and the words that come to Jo's mind are “sparkling” and “bell-like” and “angelic,” she knows for certain that she's gone on this girl.

“No,” Anna says, drying her hands. She looks down, laughs a little more. “Well, not technically. I've just never been very good at keeping my hands clean when I paint.”

Jo crosses her legs and turns a little in her spot to keep facing Anna as she pulls her apron down from its hook. “It is an art class then, though?”

“Yes,” Anna says. In her smile is enough excitement and satisfaction to make it abundantly evident how much she loves the class. “I'm in my third year of college, but this is the first art class I've taken—it's been incredible so far.” Jo imagines that her eyes, always sparkly, now practically glow with happiness.

“If you love it so much, why didn't you start taking art classes sooner?” Jo asks. As she hops down from the bar and reaches for her own apron, she watches Anna's smile falter; worry clenches around her heart. “Fuck,” she says, “I fucked up again, didn't I? Don't worry about it. Forget I asked.”

The smile Anna gives her is small and a little pained, but at least it seems genuine. “No, don't worry,” she says. She bites her lip. “But, um. Thank you for understanding that I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Oh, sure thing,” Jo says easily. Now her curiosity is higher than ever—but she can respect a girl wanting a little privacy. Hell, when asked about the knife collection under the false bottom of her middle bedroom drawer, Jo's liable to freeze up and gape like a fish, then either 1: mumble a curse and leave the room, or 2: forcibly remind the person that it's not a good idea to snoop through her damn stuff. So, she gets it. She's got sticky spots of her own. Her knives, hunting, why her dad's not around anymore...

“Well,” she says with as much enthusiasm as she can muster, “you know what? Why don't you just tell me more about this art class you love so much?” The grateful smile Anna gives her for the change of subject is worth way more than any curiosity resolution possibly could've been.

“Yeah,” she says, knotting her apron efficiently, “okay.” Bracing her hands on the bar behind her and jumping, Anna takes the spot where Jo had been sitting a moment before, grinning down at her. Raising an eyebrow, Jo leans back against the counter behind the bar, crosses her arms, and listens as Anna launches into an enthusiastic detailing of her most favorite aspects of her claimedly spectacular class. In the remaining twenty minutes before the Roadhouse opens its doors for business, Jo hears all about the fascinating woman named Linda Tran who teaches Anna's course, the sharp-mouthed girl named Tracy who Anna has taken to sitting by and texting with (Jo's sure she doesn't have a right to feel even the sliver of jealousy she does at the descriptions of Tracy's undeniable awesomeness), and the quaint little campus coffee shop run by a collection of students dedicated to delivering caffeine to their fellow sufferers.

It all sounds... nice. Like a damn good life. Jo smiles, and laughs when appropriate, and wonders if she's got any chance of being a part of this girl's tidy, enjoyable little world. She sure hopes so. And heck, If the way Anna's eyes gleam when she looks at Jo is anything to go by...

Inevitably, the clock ticks around to five o'clock, and Jo unlocks the door and flips the “Closed” sign to display its “Open” side to the public, and Anna is swept away by a crowd of customers, throwing her dazzling smile around with abandon. Although, Jo likes to think her eyes don't quite glitter for anyone else the way they do when they fall on Jo. Maybe “she hates me!” _was_ a bit of an overreaction.

The night passes, filled as ever with the bright, clashing noises of voices and glasses and pool cues. Drinks slosh; laughter bursts; Jo tends bar and flirts for tips and shares harried smiles with Anna whenever their eyes catch from across the room. All the decorations for the haunted house have been excavated from the basement, so Ash is here to do his part waiting tables. He's got a particular brand of peculiar mixed with charming that just _works_ in here; startled chuckles follow him around the room as he struts around, his outdated hair swinging behind him. He'll have a good portion of tips by the night's end. So will Anna, by the captivated looks of patrons she interacts with. She's got it easier tonight with someone to split the work with. She smiles more easily.

Not that Jo notices. Of course not.

The number of patrons (and the noise level with them) swells, and then fades again as the night wears on, until finally even Ash has conked out on the pool table, leaving Jo and Anna to finish cleaning up. It's hushed in the empty bar; each clink of dirty glasses, swoosh of the cleaning rag, and grating snore from Ash's motionless body stands out against the backdrop of quiet. The mop, when Anna grabs it, adds a repetitive scrubbing noise to the mix.

“Hey,” Jo says. She says it casually, but it still cuts clean through the lack of noise. Anna glances up at her between sweeps of the mop. “Any chance you wanna stay late for a drink tonight? You could tell me more about your class.” Finished counting their total profit for the night, she bangs the cash register closed and locks it up, then looks expectantly to Anna.

Anna looks apologetic. Jo feels her heart sink just a little. “I really am sorry,” Anna says. “I have an early morning tomorrow, though. Rain check?”

Jo chews on her lip for a moment. Slowly, she smiles. “Nah, you know what? Twice is my limit for asking. You want a drink sometime, you gotta let me know.”

Anna freezes, mouth half open in a disbelieving smile. She laughs lightly. “Really? You expect me to ask the bartender to stay late to make herself a drink?”

Jo shrugs. “I don't expect anything,” she says mildly. “But, you know. If you're ever interested.”

Anna stares at her for another second, a smile touching her mouth. She shakes her head, and the smile evolves into a grin. “Yeah,” she says, “all right. I'll let you know.”

“Cool.” Jo keeps her voice casual, but she can't help the smile that twitches her lips. “Now get outta here. I've got work to do. Can't have you distracting me.”

As she turns to leave, Anna says, “I'm a distraction for you?” and Jo can hear the amusement of her smile in her voice. She rolls her eyes.

“Go home, Milton.”

With another heart-stopping laugh, Anna goes.

—

Only two days pass before Anna leans forward over the bar after the late shift, smiling, and says, “How about that drink?”

Jo, because she is hyper-smooth, smiles a lazy, unaffected smile of her own. “Sure,” she says. It's a mark of just how damn suave she is that she maintains complete casualness while pulling out a couple of glasses. “What's your poison, Miss Mystery?”

Anna's laughter is more of a snort, and she still manages to sound delicate. It's ridiculous. And not at all endearing. “I'll take whiskey, if you don't mind. Thanks.” She ignores Jo's raised eyebrows and seats herself on a stool, resting her chin on her fist. “So, 'Miss Mystery', huh?” she asks as Jo busies herself pouring two glasses of whiskey.

Jo pauses to raise an eyebrow in Anna's direction again. “Well, let's see. You don't talk about where you're from. Never mentioned family. Don't like people asking about where you used to work or why you've only just started taking classes on your favorite subject... Come on, you're totally mysterious.”

Taking the drink Jo offers, Anna shrugs, looking thoughtful. For a moment, Jo is worried she's crossed a line again just by mentioning Anna's aversion to talking about her life before South Dakota. Then her thoughtful look morphs into one of her easy smiles, one that she flashes at Jo before taking a drink. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess I am. Huh.”

“Well, don't go feelin' _too_ special. We get weirder than you in here all the time.”

“Oh?”

“Despite your mysteriousness, you're about as average as they get.” Jo pauses, shakes her head. “Okay, your hair is pretty unique.” To stop herself from adding “ _and you're way prettier than average_ ,” Jo takes a sip of her drink.

Taking a drink of her own before setting the glass down on the bar, Anna crosses her legs. “Who's the weirdest person you've ever had in here?” she asks, eyes glittering with amused interest.

“Weirdest? Oh, I don't know.” Thinking for a moment, Jo's gaze slides from Anna to a blank spot on the bar. Suddenly, she smiles. “Well,” she says, unable to dampen her smile. “I bet you most bars don't get rednecks saying they're takin' a breather from hunting monsters.”

Anna laughs, loud and startled. Impossibly, her eyes get even sparklier. “Really?” she asks, incredulous.

Jo nods, eyebrows raised above her smile as if to say, “Can you believe that?” If she happens to leave off the part about monsters being _real_ , well. The girl doesn't need to be dragged into the hunter's life. And anyway, it makes for a good story. “Yeah,” she says, leaning on her elbow on the bar, “the things you hear in this bar, you'd think we're lucky not to have an Apocalypse every Thursday.”

Anna chuckles some more, shaking her head. “That's... that's really something. See, bartending's got its perks, huh?”

Jo manages to stop herself from snorting derisively into her drink, as that would rather ruin the whole sleek act she's got goin' on. “Yeah, whatever you say, sweetheart.” She watches closely to see Anna's response to the casual pet-name, and isn't disappointed: her eyes widen for a split second before she looks down at her drink; a pale red spreads underneath her skin. She makes a noise, half laughter, half clearing her throat, and shakes her head.

She's smiling when she looks up, and stays that way for what Jo estimates to be a full thirty seconds of silence between them.

There's a physical sensation wherever Anna's eyes wander: down over Jo's cheeks, catching on her lips, back up to her eyes. There's _definitely_ something here. Girls don't stare at other girls for so long, not like _this_ , not without some underlying attraction.

Then Anna really does clear her throat, and the moment is broken—but the heaviness still hangs in the air, warm and exciting and surrounding.

“So,” Anna says, resting her elbows on the bar. Her smile hasn't fallen out of place. “Tell me about yourself, Jo Harvelle.”

Jo raises her eyebrows; Anna watches her, face open and curious. Jo taps her fingertips against her glass. “Well,” she starts. “Uh, what can I say? I'm not complicated. I tend bar, I kick ass at pool.” She shrugs. “Ash is teaching me how to hack computers.” She takes a drink to avoid having her expression analyzed.

Her life is simple, that's all. Of course, there's always the hunting piece, but if she ever tells Anna about _that_ , she'll water it down with more than one drink first. She shrugs again, feeling out of place under Anna's spotlight. “I'm not that interesting,” she admits. And she's fine with that. Mostly.

“Oh, please,” Anna says, “I don't buy that for a second.”

“Really,” Jo asks flatly.

“Yes, really! There's more to everyone than they think there is.”

Jo forces a chuckle and shakes her head, saying, “Okay, hold up, you're not allowed to get that deep on me while I'm still on my first drink.”

Because there's not more to Jo Harvelle. What you see is pretty much what you get. Knife-loving freak; undereducated bartender; a pretty face and a quick tongue... That's about it. There might be more to most people, but not Jo.

Jo pours herself some more whiskey, takes a drink, and pretends that the inadequacy of her simple (if really fucked up) life doesn't bother her.

Anna presses her lips together. Even without smiling, there's an underlying sparkle of pleasure in her dark eyes that conveys the same sentiment. “All right,” she says, “fine. You need convincing?”

Jo takes another swig of her whiskey, beginning to feel a little lighter and looser-tongued. She makes a broad, silly gesture with her glass. “Convince away.”

Anna narrows her eyes ponderously, but her smile has returned, and it keeps her from looking too serious. “Okay,” she says. “Well. If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”

Jo makes a face. “I don't like that question. Pass.”

“Nope. No passes in this game.”

“Oh, we're playing a game? What do I get if I win?”

Anna grins, swirling her whiskey around in the bottom of her glass. “I don't know,” she says, shrugging. The movement is full of lazy, easy confidence, as is her smile. “Answer and see.”

When Jo hesitates, it's not because she doesn't know what to say; it's because there's a promising heat simmering behind those big, dark eyes that has Jo's tongue frozen and her heart hammering.

“Now quit stalling,” Anna says sternly. “You can't win if you don't play in the first place.”

With a huff of laughter and a shake of her head, Jo complies. “Well...” she says. “Uh.” Hunting's been the dream pretty much since she lost her dad. Mom hated it for taking him, said she never wanted to hear another whisper about a ghost or a wendigo or a shifter for the rest of her life—Jo, meanwhile, saw it as her last remaining connection to Dad.

But she can't exactly say that to Anna.

What, then?

“Well,” Jo says again. Anna, who's been graciously allowing her time to think, nods her encouragement. “Um, my dad used to be a police officer,” she lies. It's pretty close to the truth, she reasons. “I think... I think I could like that.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Jeez, you're nosy,” Jo protests, smiling. When Anna just raises her eyebrows, Jo lets the smile fade and shrugs. “I'd like protecting people, I think. Putting bad guys away, you know. And I've always felt like it would... uh.” She stops, clears her throat. “Um.” The bar, usually so noisy and full, leaves Jo feeling vulnerable and exposed when empty. “I've always felt like it would help me feel closer to him. He's... uh. He's gone, now.”

Anna drops her eyes. Her voice is soft when she says, “I'm sorry, Jo.” There's apology deep in her eyes when she looks up again. “I didn't mean to push you to share that with me. It was none of my business.”

Jo shakes her head. “ 'S okay. It was a long time ago. I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't want to.”

They both hold the silence for another moment. Jo drains the rest of her whiskey in one more gulp. In the quiet of the bar, the clack of her glass hitting the bar is sharp and loud.

“Well,” Anna says eventually. She offers up a small smile. “I've already proved that there's more to you than bartending and pool.”

Jo raises an eyebrow; her own smile is weak, but it's there. “Care to elaborate? You're being mysterious again.”

Anna's laugh is quiet enough to ease gently into the quiet of the bar without being too harsh or jarring. “You love your dad very much,” she says. “And Jo, I asked you what you'd most like to do, and you said ' _protect people_.'”

Jo shrugs, but Anna shakes her head.

“No, you don't get to pretend it's nothing. You're a good person, Jo.” The depth of the earnestness in those eyes is enough to make Jo hesitate, just a moment, before she snorts, shaking her head.

“You don't know that. You've known me for a month. You can't possibly make a judgement that quickly.”

Anna's eyes twinkle; her smile is wide. “Yes, I can,” she insists. “I can just tell things, sometimes. And I can tell you're a good person.”

Jo laughs a little, and shakes her head, and ducks her eyes from Anna's gaze. Her face feels hot. Her chest squeezes a little with discomfort at the compliment, even though it makes her heart burn with unusual pride.

“Um,” she says. “Oh, hey, d'you want a refill?”

Anna ponders a moment before nudging her glass towards Jo with thin, elegant fingers. “Sure,” she agrees. “Yes, please.”

Jo offers a quick smile and pours another finger of whiskey into the glass, taking comfort in the familiarity of it all. Take an order, smile, pour, serve. It's easy. Impersonal. Detached.

What's hard is meeting Anna's eyes again once she's set the whiskey down. There's a lot hanging in the air between them; even more now than the warm thrill of mutual attraction from before. Now there's all the crap about Jo's self esteem that's gotta be painfully obvious, not to mention the weight of her admission about her dad's death. So yeah, the air is heavy, and it's also imbalanced. Jo feels like she's been conned into over-sharing, somehow. She feels exposed and stupid under Anna's gaze, and too hot for her own skin in the not-fun way. To cover up her discomfort, she takes a drink.

When she's convinced herself to look at Anna again, Anna is staring down at the whiskey in her glass, shoulders tight. Before Jo can ask if she's all right, Anna looks up again. Her smile is thin.

“Well, I made you share your secrets. I guess I should return the favor, huh?”

“You don't have to,” Jo says, and means it. Yeah, it's weird that Anna knows about her dad while Jo knows pretty much nothing at all about her, but if Anna doesn't want to talk about it, Jo doesn't want her to.

But Anna shakes her head. “I want to tell you,” she says. Despite the firmness of her voice, her smile still lacks its typical fervency. One of her thin hands wraps tightly around the glass, which she takes a gulp from before setting it down and sighing.

“Uh,” she starts. “Well, my family is... Um, they're controlling, you could say. My dad's had a career path set out for me since before they'd picked a name.” Anna twists her fingers together, hands resting on the bar, and gazes down at those instead of meeting Jo's eyes. Respectfully, Jo chooses a spot on the wall to look at as she listens. Anna blows out another sigh. “And this is gonna sound terrible, okay? I was, um.” Another sigh, shorter, harsher, and Jo can see the shake of Anna's head from the corner of her eye. “I was supposed to be a doctor,” she says. It's hesitant, clipped, like the words are hard to get out. Red hair shifts as Anna shakes her head again. “I was supposed to be a doctor,” she repeats, voice a little faster, a little rougher, “but instead I'm here taking self-indulgent art classes and working in a bar, and doing nothing at all of any real use to anyone. I was supposed to—I was supposed to _save people's lives_ , and instead I ran away and started painting stupid pictures.”

“Hey—” Jo says, but Anna shakes her head, says, “Don't,” and Jo closes her mouth.

A moment later, Anna gives yet another sigh, and looks up with a weak smile. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't mean to... You were just trying to be nice, and I...” She shakes her head, smile gone now, and runs an agitated hand through her hair. “It's just...” A short, disbelieving chuckle. “Man, I asked you what you wanted to do, and you said you'd _help people_ if you could, and here _I_ am, poised to spend my life saving lives, but...” Another sigh. Girl's got a lotta pent-up frustration, Jo guesses.

Wordlessly, she picks up the whiskey bottle again and refills Anna's glass; Anna pauses only to give Jo a little smile before taking a drink.

“Sometimes you gotta take care of yourself before you can take care of other people,” Jo tells her.

Anna is quiet for a long moment. Lips twitching with amusement, she says, “Now you're the one getting deep.”

Jo raises an eyebrow. “I'm not on my first drink anymore,” she says. “And you're deflecting.”

With a shrug, Anna falls quiet again.

From her post behind the bar, Jo has a view of the clock on the far wall all night long. Right now its simple black hands read _1:38_. Jo doesn't mention it. It's been a while since she's stayed out late; she can take it. Outside the Roadhouse windows (they need washing, Jo notices), the night is solid darkness. Morning, technically. The morning is solid darkness; it looks cold out there, sharp with October chill. It's clear, too, no rain, no clouds. If the weather holds, they should be set for an amazing opening night in two days' time.

Jo's eyes gravitate back to Anna, whose shoulders are hunched a little, eyes down.

“Hey,” Jo says. Anna looks up, eyes faintly curious. “For the record, I think art's important, too. If that's your thing to offer, then, you know. The world needs that too.”

Anna's face melts into a soft smile. Her eyes are as warm as Jo's ever seen them, grateful and glittery, a little narrowed with the force of her smile. Jo's insides absolutely do not partake in acrobatic maneuvers, even though that gentle, happy smile is because of her. Nope. Definitely not.

And then Anna looks away, checking her phone for the time, and the moment is snapped. A tiny dart of disappointment pricks Jo's heart, but she ignores it.

Anna's smile, when she turns it back to Jo, is apologetic again. “I have class at ten thirty tomorrow,” she admits. “I should really get going.”

Jo nods, makes herself smile. “Education first,” she agrees.

Anna smiles, sliding her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. “This was fun,” she says. “We should do it again sometime.”

Jo nods, and is about to say, “ _Sure, just let me know_ ,” when Anna gets to her knees on her stool, leans across the bar, cups Jo's cheek with one hand, and drops a feather-light kiss at the corner of her mouth. Then she pulls back. Smiles brightly. Gets down from the stool, heads for the door, waves a little, leaves.

Jo just stands there, blinking.

—

“So...” Jo says, watching Anna pull her hair into a long ponytail. She crosses her arms and leans on the bar, all easy, all casual. “You have a good day?”

Anna smiles, grabbing her apron. “Yep.”

Jo nods. “Good. That's... good.”

“Yep.” She flashes Jo a quick smile, tucking her coat away behind the bar. “You?”

Jo shrugs. “Was okay. Tomorrow'll be better.”

Perching herself lightly on a stool across from Jo, Anna raises her eyebrows. “What's tomorrow?”

Jo blinks. “Oh, man, how do you not know yet? We're setting up our haunted house tomorrow! Mom's making pie.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. Hey, you should come help out! If you're free, I mean.” A whiskey-colored memory of a pseudo-date and a kiss goodnight glides through Jo's head from just last night, and she backtracks. What if she sounds too invested? “I mean, not, like—it doesn't have to be a big deal, it's just fun, you know? And my mom's making pie, did I tell you that? She makes good pie. But it doesn't have to be—it doesn't have to mean—”

“That sounds fun,” Anna says, and Jo stops talking. “It's a date.”

Jo feels her eyes go wide, and she's powerless to stop them. Anna's lips curl into a smile, self-contented as a cat. “Unless I'm reading this all wrong, of course.” Her lips twitch. “But I don't think I am.”

It's only with a focused exertion of immense self control that Jo gets her bug eyes under control and holds her blooming smile down to acceptable levels. “Uh.” Crap, is her voice always so rough? “No, you're not. Reading it wrong, I mean.”

“Good,” Anna says. “Great. Where do I go tomorrow, and what time do you want me there?”


	2. Fake Blood, Ghosts, and More Kisses

Set-up goes smoothly (if you don't count the incidents—yes, incidents, plural—involving Ash, faulty, worn-out smoke machines and string lights, and near electrocution), and just as the whipped cream bonus on top of Mom's amazing pumpkin pie, Anna is there in a college t-shirt and black leggings, and she works hard enough to more than make up for all the distraction she causes Jo. The house turns out fantastic. Of course it does, it always does, but this year, just, _wow_. They've taken full advantage of all the creepy quirks that keep the place from retaining a permanent owner. The rickety front porch will function as the reception area, where they'll take people's money and give them the layout of the house. The first floor windows and walls are draped in black cloth, and the only lighting comes from a weird angle up from the floor, colored stage lights hidden amidst the hanging fabric. The creaky, terrifying staircase is lit from the crawl space below with sickly orangish-red light that shines up between the gaps in the uneven floorboards; the stair rails are covered in sticky fake blood, leaving the to-be patrons to choose between getting their hands coated in the stuff, or climbing the frightful stairs without a handhold. Upstairs is where the smoke machines are, hiding the floor with ghosty, low-floating clouds that will absorb people's feet when they walk. There are jump-scare skeletons, and leathery, incredibly realistic bats that drop from the ceiling, and an abundance of closets and intentionally constructed places for workers to jump out from.

“This is gonna be _amazing_.” Jo swings her hands at her sides, standing at the edge of the sidewalk with Anna as they watch the final touches go up on the outside of the house. “Man, I can't wait for tomorrow night.”

“This sure is something,” Anna says. “You really do this every year?”

“Heck yeah! It's like, Halloween tradition around here.” They're both still gazing up at the house, but Jo can see Anna shake her head in her peripheries.

It's starting to get dark out already, even though it's not quite six. The falling sun tints the growing shadows a warmish orange, the sky a watery yellow; the trees in the front yard are black-branched against the sky, their spindly arms still clinging determinedly to about half their fall-stained leaves. The loud rush of the nearby highway at rush hour is starting to lessen, and the clamor of the work is starting to die down, and everything could pretty much be described as peaceful. That is, until Ellen bustles out the front door, hollers, “All right, you better get your asses inside if you want a slice of pie,” and the heavy-footed team of decorators head inside with renewed energy. Without too much thought, Jo grabs Anna by the hand and leads her into the house.

Mom's set up on the back porch, slicing pie after pie (Jo excitedly counts at least seven) and setting out paper plates. There aren't _that_ many people here; the leftovers will be pulled out tomorrow and the next day to celebrate their first weekend of operation.

“Hey,” Jo says, steering them into a spot at the end of the short line and dropping Anna's hand a little reluctantly, “if you're not busy and it sounds fun, you can come help out again tomorrow night, if you want.”

“What kind of things do you need help with tomorrow?”

Jo shrugs. “Mom usually mans the cash up front. You could dress up and scare people inside, or hand out cookies at the exit. Oh, did I mention there'll be cookies? You really should come.”

Anna laughs lightly, bumping her shoulder against Jo's for no clear reason other than casual touch. Jo's insides tingle happily. “I should really spend the time catching up on homework,” she admits. “But that does sound fun.” She bites her lip, and a second later, her eyes widen. “Hey, maybe I can stop bye early and help you guys dress up! I'm a whiz with face-paint.”

They reach the glorious pie-laden table, and Jo grabs a generous piece, sprays enough whipped topping on it to get a glare from her mom, and waits for Anna to do the same. (Okay, Anna takes a much more reasonable portion of whipped cream. Whatever.) “That's a good idea,” she says, keeping her enthusiasm under wraps with questionable success while scoping out a spot on the ground for them to sit. It's a smallish yard, just one presiding tree, a bunch of dry grass, and a weather-worn porch that takes up half the ground-space. Jo plops down cross-legged in the grass; Anna folds her long legs and sits next to her.

“I was thinkin' I'd go for zombie this year,” Jo says ponderously, forking a too-large bite of pie and lifting it to her mouth. She pauses. “You know, ripped up clothes, blood all over. A shotgun or an axe or something.” She scrapes the bite of pie off her fork with her teeth and _hmm_ s happily. “Damn, I swear this is the best pie in the world.” She watches Anna spear a reasonably-sized bite of her own, pull it delicately from the fork with her lips. A moment later, she nods her agreement.

“Delicious,” she said. “Does your mom sell this stuff in the Roadhouse?”

Jo laughs. “Nope. Your only shot at more is to come help tomorrow night.”

Anna shakes her head, looking at her pie with an expression that's both forlorn and amused. “That's disappointing,” she says. “Man, you guys could be rich if you put this on the menu.”

“Yeah, but then we couldn't use it to bribe people into helping us set up.” She takes another huge bite of pie, savors the smooth, rich, spicy pumpkinyness on her tongue, and hesitates. “Okay, well, that's not entirely true.” Using her fork as a pointer, she indicates a tall man standing across the yard talking to Victor, his grip on his pie plate death-tight. “Dean could still be lured in. But yeah, for everyone else, it wouldn't be special anymore, and they'd come up with excuses not to help.”

“Some reliable friends you got there,” Anna says, smiling.

Jo shrugs. “Well, you can rely on them to come when there's special Halloween pie. That's gotta count for something, right?” She crams another bite of pie into her mouth and looks at Anna, whose smile is all warm and soft and pretty in the evening light. She swallows her pie as quickly as she can, aiming to maintain at least a little bit of dignity.

“For what it's worth,” Anna says quietly, still smiling, “I'd come anyway.”

Jo falters a moment, then grins and leans sideways to bump into Anna's side. “Like the pie that much, huh?”

Anna shrugs, following Jo with her smile as she sits up straight again. “Maybe it's not the pie,” she suggests.

Jo goes still. Oh. Okay. Okay, yeah, she can get behind that.

She smiles slowly, and Anna leans in a little, dark eyes intent on Jo's, asking if this is okay, if they can do this right in front of all these people. And heck, Jo's never been one for tip-toeing around. She rests a hand on Anna's cheek, which is warm against her palm and soft under her fingertips, and she leans in, eyes still latched on Anna's, not closing until she presses her lips up to Anna's, light and slow. Jo's lips tingle, every nerve ending aware aware aware of the warmth and soft solidity of Anna's mouth against her own. They're both still for a long moment, lips pressed motionlessly together, getting to know the feel of each other. Then Anna's hand is on Jo's knee as she turns into the kiss, and Jo curls her fingers through Anna's hair, and Anna leads them into a slow, introductory close-mouthed kiss, and Jo's heart is probably gonna beat right out of her chest like in one of those early morning cartoons.

A whistle comes from across the yard; Jo removes her hand from Anna's hair to flip off who she assumes is Dean, and lets their mouths stay pressed together for another several seconds before she pulls away. Anna blinks her eyes open, gives a tiny, soft smile. The skin around her lips is a pale, raw pink. Jo has once again forgotten how the fuck to control her grin.

—

It's totally fine that Anna doesn't show up on Saturday night. Jo is totally not that disappointed. Okay, yeah, maybe she'd been looking forward to being Anna's last indulgence before she set off for a night of studying, and maybe she'd been looking forward to showing Anna her zombie costume (yes, it consists of jeans and a very ripped up bloody shirt, and yes, she looks amazingly hot), and maybe she'd been looking forward to taking Anna up on her offer to apply face paint, and maybe she'd been looking forward to trying to convince Anna to ditch the homework, slap on some fake blood, and work the first shift of the year at Jo's side—but no, she's not that disappointed. It is entirely uncalled for that both Victor and Dean separately ask her what's wrong (Victor with a polite, if exasperated, “What's going on now?” and Dean with a rather less tactful, “What crawled up your butt and died?). Jo brushes off their inquiries, finds a spot in the yard to herself, and starts slathering fake blood all up her chest and neck. It's thick, tacky, and _cold_ going on, and it sticks to her skin weirdly. _It's gonna look awesome_ , she reminds herself, _don't rub it off, no matter how weird it feels_. She moves on to her side, lifting her t-shirt to apply blood beneath the artfully scissor-shredded fabric. Once there's a generous helping of the red stuff on her skin, she presses the shirt back down, sticking the edges of the “claw marks” to her skin.

“Aw,” a voice says behind her, “looks like I missed the fun part.”

Jo does not jump a little when she turns around, thanks. “You creepin' on me?” she asks.

Anna laughs lightly. “Isn't that what you're going to be doing all night?”

“Fair point,” Jo admits. She spreads her hands out to her sides. “Hey, how do I look? My trusty make-up artist bailed on me, but I think I did all right on my own.”

Anna's eyes drag down Jo's body, taking in the blood streaked up her neck, the shredded shirt, the blood-decorated axe at her feet on the ground. She nods appreciatively. “You look...like a giant animal used you as a chew toy.” She smiles. “So, good. You look good.”

Jo grins back at her. “Thanks. And hey, you did miss the fun part, but if you're not too enamored with your school work tomorrow, I've gotta put on all this crap all over again.”

Anna's eyes slide down Jo's decorated chest, falling to the blood-coated skin of her stomach and resting there a moment. She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth. “Yeah,” she says, “yeah, I think I might be able to find some time.”

Weird, elated excitement bubbles in Jo's stomach and in her lungs; she lets a little of it out in a small laugh. “Awesome. I'll hold you to that.”

They spend a moment or two or seven just looking at each other, both smiling a little, before Anna ducks her head and snaps the their stare. When she looks up again, her smile has taken on a mischievous tilt. “Think there's any chance we can steal a piece of pie before I have to head out?”

Jo stifles her own smile, replacing with a thoughtful expression. “It's pretty heavily guarded,” she says grimly. She narrows her eyes. “How good are you at stealth?”

“Oh,” Anna says, nodding, her eyes wide and serious even though amusement dances on her lips and colors her tone, “I'm excellent at being sneaky.”

Jo gives her a nod, expression filled with the utmost sincerity, bends at the knees to pick up her fake, lightweight axe from the ground, and holds out her free hand to Anna. “We'd better get a move on,” she says. “The guests'll start showing up soon, and then we'll have missed our chance.”

Anna laughs a little, all high, giddy happiness, and Jo can't contain her smile any longer. She grins, and they set out, hand in hand, for the downstairs room sectioned off for employee storage.

The storage room is small, and the decoration is as scarce as it was everywhere else in the house. Jo has wondered if it might have been intended as a private living room, or maybe a guest room. In any case, whatever its original purpose, it's now been set up with a small assortment of folding chairs brought from the Roadhouse, and one creaky folding table. The chairs are hardly visible under the haphazardly stacked possessions of workers; coats and gloves and changes of clothes leave only small parts of the black metal uncovered. And the table, the table upholds several leftover pumpkin pies, a stack of paper plates, a cup full of plastic forks, and three cans of Reddi Whip spray.

“Go,” Jo whispers, nudging Anna ahead of her. “Cut a slice.” Listening for Anna's footsteps doing as she's told, Jo eases the door shut behind them, ears perked for any approaching potential snitches. If Victor catches them, they're probably okay. If Dean walks in, they'll have to deal him a generous helping of pie to keep him quiet, but they'll make it. If it's mom, well. Then they're screwed. Double-shift with a cut of their tips designated back to Ellen kinda screwed. Hearing nothing, Jo heads over to the table on quiet, careful feet and stands beside Anna.

Anna's long fingers are free of paint except for a streak of green on the inside of her right ring finger that she must've missed when she washed her hands. The muscles in her forearm flex as she wrangles a piece of pie from the pan using the precariously small slicer available. Taking a step to the right, she grabs the whipped cream can and pushes the cap off one-handed; she sprays a neat spiral on top of her slice. Jo hands her the cap and grabs her a fork.

“Done yet, master decorator?”

Anna rolls her eyes but takes the fork, and they sneak out of the room, Jo first, then Anna. They slip through the house, back out the front door, pie held low and discreet.

Anna breaks into laughter when they clear the house, clutching at Jo's arm with the hand not holding her plate. “Oh my god,” she giggles, “why is my heart pounding so hard? It's not like we stole anything expensive. We swiped a piece of _pie_ , for christ sakes.”

“Hey, no one would blame you for being terrified of my mom. She's kind of a scary woman.”

“Oh, come on.” Anna lets go of Jo's arm to slice a bite of pie with her fork, balancing the plate carefully on her palm. “She's not _that_ bad.”

Jo's eyebrows jump up. “You clearly haven't seen her on a bad day.”

Anna shrugs, cleaning off her fork. “Well,” she says, voice sticky as she swallows the pie, “I guess I'll see one eventually, huh?” Her mouth curves up into half a smile. “I think I plan to stick around for a while.”

“Oh,” Jo says, blinking. “Well, good. I didn't know that was something I shoulda been worrying about.”

Anna's smile grows. “You would've worried?”

In swatting her arm, Jo nearly upsets the delicate balancing act she'd been performing with her pie plate, and Anna jumps away from her once she's got the plate back under control. “Hey, I worked hard for this pie,” she complains. “Anyway, um, I should probably get going. I'll see what I can do about my night tomorrow though, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Jo says. When Anna hesitates a moment instead of turning for the driveway, Jo takes a quick, impulsive step forwards, holds Anna lightly by the elbow, and presses a short, warm kiss to her mouth.

Once she's pulled away, Anna stands there a second longer, eyes closed, smiling. Then she blinks her eyes open, smiles at Jo for another second, and heads back to her car, pie in hand.

From no light or angle could it be rightfully said that Jo watched her go with a sappy smile on her face.

  


Jo isn't there when it happens. When it happens, Jo is downstairs, hiding around a corner with her back pressed against the wall, ready to jump out and swing her axe at the couple she can hear approaching. Her chest is warm with the excitement of the night, her energy thriving on the shrieks-turned-giggles from all around the house, the tentative footsteps, the flashing lights. Far from her mind is anything serious or concerned; her focus is captured by the enjoyment of the job.

But then the couple stops approaching before they reach her.

They hear the scream, too.

It makes their shuffling footsteps come to an abrupt halt.

It even makes Jo pause.

One member of the couple around the corner speaks; her voice is hesitant, carrying an undertone of shakiness even though her words are steady. “Wow. That really sounded real, huh?”

Another scream slices down the stairs, though this one is a notch less piercing, and quickly aborted.

Jo hesitates, frozen in her place. Her fake axe hangs loose in her double-handed grip.

Thing is? It's not a voice she recognizes. If it was, she'd assume it was Victor or Dean, or maybe Charlie, Ash's occasional partner-in-crime who's helping them out. They go off book all the time; if inspiration for terror-inspiring strikes, heck, you gotta take it.

But it's not Victor, or Dean, or Charlie.

It's no one Jo recognizes. And if it's a guest, and there's still that much panicked noise from above, they've either done their jobs, too well, or...

No. No, no way. All uncertainty about that room with the rumor-laden history and the unreliable EMF readings had been firmly out of her mind, pushed out by all the preparation and strobe lights and clacking fake skeletons—but... that _was_ the direction the scream came from....

Except that _no_ , there's no way, if for no other reason than the unbelievability of the pure irony it would take for Hunters to rent an actually haunted house. Seriously, there's like, not that much irony in the entire freaking world.

Right?

With a harsh noise of frustration, Jo shoulders her fake axe and trods out from her corner, brushing past the couple that were to be her victims. She's just gonna go up there and see what's going on, and then her ridiculous imagination will be able to calm the heck down. Squinting in the dim lighting, she beelines for the stairs and takes them without touching the sticky rail. There's less noise from upstairs than she would expect. Usually there's stifled yells and raucous laughter, little thuds as workers jump out and patrons jump back—but okay, maybe the unusual calm is because someone got a little too scared, and people are being polite while they get a grip and prepare to make their way out of the house. Not because there was like, an actual ghost, or anything, because as has been said, that would just be ridiculous.

“Hey,” Jo says, reaching the second floor. Dean is standing in the doorway to the last room at the end of the hall, face tight. Victor is guiding a teenage girl gently away by the arm. Even from here, Jo can see that her hands are shaking violently. “Hey, what happened?” she insists.

The girl lets out a tiny dry sob, and Jo steps reluctantly out of the way to let Victor take her downstairs.

“Dean? What happened?”

Dean shakes his head a little, peering into the room. With his make-up (he's a white-faced zombie in tattered, grimy clothes), his cheekbones and the worry in his eyes stand out. “Girl said she saw a ghost,” he says. Abruptly, he looks back at her. “Hey, you don't happen to have an EMF detector on you, do you?”

Jo shakes her head. She presses her lips together. “She say what the ghost looked like?”

Dean turns back to the room, taking a cautious step in. Jo follows him. “Um. Said it was a woman. Couldn't really describe her. She said the lady kept telling her to 'come home' though, whatever that means.”

Jo feels cold like she's just chugged a big glass of ice water; it spreads through her veins, sudden encompassing and unpleasant. “Dean, we need to close off that room,” she says. She speaks slowly for the sake of clarity, but the urgency in her voice is unmistakeable.

He looks back at her, eyes a little wide. “You think she really saw one? Come on, are you telling me you idiots didn't bother to check the place out before you rented it?”

“Hey,” Jo says sharply, “of course we did. There're power lines just outside this room though, made the EMF detector go whack-o. We assumed there was nothing.”

“You assumed there was nothing.” Dean shakes his head, rubs at the back of his neck. He smiles, laughs a little, disbelievingly. “You assumed there was nothing,” he repeats, “and now we've got a real goddamn ghost in the house. Great. That's great.”

“You know what, you can calm down and help me get this room blocked off, Mr. Pissypants, or you can go somewhere else.”

Dean rolls his eyes. He helps her, though.

Twenty minutes later, they head back down the stairs, in considerably less holiday cheer.

“So,” Dean says grumpily, because he's pretty much always grumpy and wallowing, “you wanna take the night off and hit the library with me?”

“Hell no,” Jo says lightly, swinging her fake axe at her side.

“Jo, come on. Somebody has to find the body and salt and burn the bones.”

“Yep, and that somebody's sure as hell not gonna be me.”

If he wasn't always so full of self-pity and an overgrown sense of responsibility, Dean might protest more than he does. Instead he just sighs, and says, “Yeah, fine. But before I go you're gonna tell me everything you know about this house. And I'm gonna grab me a piece of pie.”

She does, and he does, and then he takes off to the library to peruse obituaries, and the rest of the night goes about as well as could be expected, which is to say, not bad except for the awkward conversation she has to have with Mom explaining that um, so there's a ghost in the house, a real one, oops. But really, minus the, you know, actual bloodthirsty monster, the night's a total hit. Jo runs around the hallways with her axe swinging wildly and her face contorted into ghastly expressions, and she screams in the faces of guests, and she and Victor even stage a vicious fight, vampire on zombie, and it's great. Excluding the ghost still, obviously.

—

Sunday dawns rainy, but clears up as the day progresses. An unshakable chill lingers in the air and in everyone's bones, and the dampness hangs around without a persistent sun to burn it away. The grass is wet and muddy as Jo treks up to the haunted house that evening, coating her boots in slippery muck. She makes a face, and uses the edge of the porch to scrape the soles of her shoes clean when Mom's not looking.

Being wet and gross, the grass is also squelchy-loud; Jo hears someone squishing towards her from well across the yard, and turns to smile at Anna while she's still several yards away.

“Hi,” Anna says once she's closer. “I haven't missed the fun part yet, have I?”

Jo shakes her head and takes Anna by the arm, steering her toward the house. “Nope. Made it just in time.” Jo's already wearing her ripped up clothing, but the job of coating herself in fake blood is yet to be done.

They wipe their shoes as best they can on the thin doormat before setting out for the employee room, where Jo retrieves a big bottle of homemade fake blood. She gets outstanding tips, but there's no way she's gonna spring for the expensive store-bought crap when she can find perfectly good corn syrup at the grocery store. Grinning at Anna, she holds the bottle up and shakes it. The sloshing sound it makes is perfectly disgusting.

They end up taking the stuff back outside where “the light is better” because Anna is, apparently, a snob, and so Jo finds herself standing in the front yard holding her shirt up to her chest while Anna's precise, long-fingered hands spread goop all over her side. It should not be as thrilling as it is. Next, Anna drags her sticky fingers across Jo's neck and upper chest, smearing the fake blood all over her skin, and dang, Jo just might burn out of her skin.

“You okay?” Anna asks. She can ask quietly, because they're standing so freaking close together.

Jo swallows. “Yep!” she says brightly. “Fantastic.” She holds her breath until she can't anymore, and then lets it out slowly. The air is determinedly cold, but Anna's fingertips are somehow warm. From the way Anna's smiling, Jo's pretty sure she knows exactly how hard Jo's heart is beating.

Anyway, Jo survives the incredible ordeal. She even survives Anna leaning down a couple inches to kiss her when she's done, getting bloody hand prints on the waist of Jo's shirt. Perhaps most miraculously, she even survives her mom coming out at that exact moment and yelling at her to get her butt back to work.

The night goes on. Jo loads her shotgun with salt rounds, telling Anna the gun is just for show, but that the bullets won't actually injure anyone should anything go wrong. She leaves out the part about the frickin' ghost that the gun _will_ hurt, because, you know. She doesn't want Anna to think she's crazy.

Since Anna didn't come in costume and they're unable to dig up a spare, Ellen doesn't allow her on Official Scaring Duty, but she does acquiesce when Jo asks if she can hang out anyway, as long as she understands that she's not to interfere with workers and that she'll get no congratulatory pie at the end of the night. (Unless it's stolen pie.) Unfortunately, this leads to less time actually interacting with her than Jo would've hoped for. They've kissed a few times, and gotten drunk and talked about their dreams and their pasts, and Jo would really, really like to spend a night together not working, just, maybe like, making out and talking about if they're allowed to use the word “girlfriend” in reference to each other. But no such luck. Anna is sent off with instructions not to get in the way of any guests or workers and to avoid the room at the end of the upstairs hallway because it's blocked off, and aside from a couple times when Jo chases her around the house when there's a lull in business, they don't spend much time together. Victor is not any better at listening in vampire form than he is as a human. Dean texted to say he's off to the cemetery as soon as he finishes double-checking at the library; he'll text her when the bones are burned.

With no one to complain to, Jo chases some guests around for a while, and screams her best, most terrifying scream at a couple that's idling through and giggling at everything, and escorts a kid who looks a little too young and a little too scared to the back door, where she's handed a cookie and sent on her way. She's so caught up in the activity that she jumps at least a foot into the air when Anna grabs her waist from behind.

“Oh my god,” she gasps, turning in Anna's arms to face her.

Anna laughs, bright and happy. “Come on, I was sure you had to be made of tougher stuff to work in a haunted house.”

“It's not usually the _workers_ who have people sneak up on them, dude!”

Anna just laughs some more, and Jo finds herself smiling along.

“How's your night going?” Anna asks, releasing Jo from her hold and lacing their fingers together. They start to walk, down a hallway, back to the entryway. Looking around, Jo doesn't see any guests for the moment.

“It's been okay,” she says. “I saved a little girl from this scary place just a minute ago; you shoulda seen me.”

Anna bumps their shoulders together, smiling. They meander up the stairs, hands still linked. Jo's gun, held in her free hand, thuds lightly against each step they climb. For the minute, the house stays quiet.

“Honestly, I sorta hoped my night would go a little differently,” Jo admits. From the corner of her eye, she sees Anna raise an eyebrow.

“I thought you loved all this stuff.”

“No, I do! It's just... I don't know, I thought maybe _we'd_ get to... hang out... more. I mean, I get to do this stuff every year, and it's great, but... I don't know, we've just started doing this really great _kissing_ thing—” Anna chuckles “—and it's kinda more appealing than like, literally anything else.”

When Anna doesn't speak for a moment, Jo glances over at her, is relieved to see that she's smiling. “Well,” she says eventually, “that's sure nice for my ego to hear.”

Jo bumps into her, but can't bring herself to protest more full-heartedly, because Anna stops walking and turns to look at Jo with that _look_ in her eyes, and okay, now they're kissing, that's pretty cool. Okay, more than pretty cool. Super-freaking-awesome describes it better. Anna's mouth is warm, and her hands are warm on Jo's neck, and her hair is soft under Jo's fingers, and her lips are insistent, and okay, Anna's backing up to lean against a wall now, that's cool, that works. Jo presses her into it, kisses her harder. One of Anna's hands leaves Jo's neck; the doorknob clunks a little as she turns it and tugs Jo inside.

They keep kissing. Christ, Anna's mouth is so warm. Anna's whole everything is warm: her mouth, her hands, her body held tight to Jo's. Her warmth is made more obvious by the coldness of the room.

And hang on, it was a little chilly before, but was it this cold?

Jo pulls back.

No, it definitely wasn't this cold a minute ago. She glances around, momentarily ignoring Anna's questioning look. She takes in the decorations covering the walls, and the dim overhead lighting, and the not-exactly-clean windows with the power lines outside, and swallows nervously. She's glad now that she hung onto her gun while they were kissing.

“Uh,” she says, “we're not supposed to be in this room. It was closed off, remember? We should go.”

“Oh, come on. If it's closed off, no one'll bother us, right?” Anna grins, stepping back into Jo's space. Jo opens her mouth to come up with another excuse, and Anna hesitates, looking suddenly apologetic. “Or, if you want to go, we can go.” Jo's about to say, _Yep, great, let's get out of here_ , but Anna continues. “I don't want you to feel... pressured into anything you don't want to do. I didn't mean to get carried away, it's just that I really like you, and I—No, it doesn't matter. We can go, if that's what you want.”

“No, no way!” Jo says, like a complete idiot. “It's not that I don't want to, don't get me wrong, it's just...” Oh, crap. _Think_. She just blew the excuse Anna gave her, when obviously _immediate survival_ is more freaking important than immediate reassurance that Jo is totally on board with however far Anna wants to go. Fuck. “Um!” she says. “It's the flooring, actually. This room isn't structurally sound, so we like, _really_ can't be in here—uh.” Jo goes quiet, because there's a fucking ghost over Anna's shoulder. It's a woman, just like the witnesses had said, with dark hair and dark-ringed eyes, and a dark, thick, rope-like bruise around her neck. “Anna,” Jo says, very calmly. “I need you to duck, and not look behind you.”

“Wh—”

“Don't ask questions, just do it.”

Anna does it. Jo has her shotgun raised in a second, aims at the ghost, shoots. The ghost flickers out of existence, and the salt round bursts against the wall.

Anna's on her feet again right away, looking around, wide-eyed. Seeing nothing, she rounds on Jo. “Seriously?” she demands. “This room is unstable, so you _fire your gun_?”

“Anna, listen—” Jo starts, but she doesn't have to explain further, because the ghost reappears right between them. Anna's eyes go wide.

“Um,” she says, taking a step back. “Damn, you guys have some really good decorations.”

Jo swears under her breath. “Anna, that's not a freaking hologram. Why would we have a hologram set up in a room no one's allowed into?”

“I don't know,” Anna breathes, eyes fixed to the ghost that's gliding towards her, “but please tell me you do.”

“Shit,” Jo says flatly, and shuffles to the side. She wants to get on the other side of the ghost, or at least perpendicular to it, so she doesn't shoot Anna if the ghost dodges again.

“Why did you leave?” the ghost asks. It lifts its hands, reaching for Anna. Wisely, Anna takes a few quick steps backward. “Joseph? Why did you run away?”

With a grunt, Jo fires her gun. A bang, a flash—the ghost shudders out of sight. Jo hurries over to Anna. Anna is shaking when Jo grips her arm.

“Are you okay?”

Anna looks at her with wild eyes. “How the hell could I possibly be okay right now?” She breathes harshly, shaking her head and looking away. “Is it—did you kill it? Is it gone?”

“Didn't kill it. Can't kill it. Dean's off getting rid of it for us, but we've gotta stall, you hear me?”

“I—I—” Anna shakes her head, eyes darting around the room. She takes a deep, rushed breath. “Okay,” she says. Her voice is thin. Jo wants to grip Anna's hand in a gesture of support, but she figures it's about time to get her hands back on her gun.

And not a second too late.

The ghost zaps back into sight a few feet in front of them. Anna takes a half step back behind Jo. Jo raises her gun. She shoots, but the ghost floats to the side. Then it floats forward, which, bad. Jo shoots again, shoots again. The ghost flicks out of existence for a moment, but of its own choosing, not because it was hit.

Then it's back, a little to Jo's side, out of her direct line of sight. Before she can react, its arm connects with her torso, hard, and she goes sprawling one way, and her gun goes skittering off the other.

Her head thwacks against the floor; her vision flicks black for a second. Faintly, she hears herself let out a slow, pained groan. The ghost advances on Anna. Fuck. Jo pushes herself to a sitting position—and promptly eases herself to the floor again when her head spins and her vision goes spotty. _Shit_. She looks around, heart thudding in her throat. Her gun is several yards away. There's no way she gets there in time.

Still, she's never been one not to try. Gritting her teeth, Jo turns onto her stomach, ignoring the ghost, ignoring the way her stomach roils and her head spins. Using her arms, she drags herself slowly, slowly across the floor. If she moves too fast, pushes too hard, she's pretty sure she'll pass out. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Someone has really, really fantastic timing, because her phone rings right then.

“God _damn_ it,” she spits, breathing hard. She recognizes _Back in Black_ , which is Dean's ringtone. Dean who is hopefully salting those damn bones right the fuck now. Panting, resting her forehead on the floor and praying that Anna's still managing to evade the ghost, Jo digs her phone out of her jeans pocket.

“Dean?” she breathes into it. Her gun is still a few yards away. She twists her head a little, finding Anna; the ghost is still reaching for her. Thankfully, it doesn't move very fast; so far, Anna's avoiding it just fine.

“Dean, I'm in kind of a situation, hurry it up,” Jo hisses into the phone.

“ _Yeah, uh. I'm at the cemetery._ ”

Jo exhales heavily. “And?”

“ _And I just wanna make sure I burn the right bones. 'Margaret Gold' sound right to you? Hanged herself at thirty-one years old when her only kid ran away, used to live in that house._ ”

“Um, I think that sounds right?” Jo says. “Sure, go for it.” She breathes for another moment, phone still up to her ear. Anna has moved in front of her, and now the ghost is following. Which, honestly, isn't that kinda weird? Why wouldn't it go after Jo, who's right here?

Jo tightens her grip on her cellphone. “Dean, get going,” she says. “Anna!”

Anna's eyes flick between Jo and the incoming ghost.

“When you dropped out of school—did you run away from home?”

“Really, Jo? Why the hell would you need to know—”

“Just answer the question! It's important, or I swear I wouldn't ask.”

Anna bites her lip, closing her eyes. “I—yes,” she says quietly. “Yeah, I did.”

“Dean, that's definitely her. Please tell me you've already dug up the grave.”

“ _Yeah, just gotta salt and burn._ ”

“Well _hurry_ ,” Jo urges, and hangs up the phone. “We should be good in a few minutes—” Jo begins, but then she realizes that the ghost of Margaret Gold is much closer to Anna than Jo is to her gun, and Anna is pretty much backed into a corner, and _shit_.

With new adrenaline, Jo crawls forward, but she knows that she's not gonna make it. It's not even a gut feeling—her gut feeling in bad situations is pretty much always “ _there's gotta be another way out of this_.” But there's not another way out of this. Her gun is just too far. The ghost is just too close. Anna is just too trapped and too scared. But Jo drags herself forward, head spinning, an ache pounding behind her eyes, and pretends it's not entirely futile.

This really isn't fair. Okay, now she's being selfish, but she guesses she's just been around so much death as a hunter that the horror of a college student dying loses an edge that's regained when it's a college student she _knows_ , one who's so cheerful and smart and positive. Jo really, really likes Anna. This is so not fair. They haven't even really made out yet, not real, long, good making out, and Anna's art isn't famous and she hasn't forgiven herself for not becoming a doctor and there is so, so much more life in her—

The gunshot blasts in Jo's ears and makes her headache worse. Her thinking is a little bleary, but she knows _she's_ not the one who pulled the trigger, so who... maybe Victor? Dean couldn't be back yet, could he?

She looks up, and the ghost isn't there anymore, but _Anna_ is, standing tall, feet set apart, Jo's shotgun in her hands. She looks terrified, but that's not the most important thing at the moment. The most important thing is that she's _alive_.

Jo stares at her for a moment. It's not her fault that she's having trouble taking this in, okay—blame the damn ghost responsible for her freaking concussion.

“You, um,” Jo manages. Her voice breaks the ringing quiet in the room. “You know how to shoot a gun?”

After a moment's hesitation, Anna looks at her. Slowly, she shakes her head.

Jo snorts weakly. “Okay, yeah. Well, nice job then, I guess. Uh, you might wanna put that thing down before you—”

Another blast demolishes the end of Jo's sentence, as well as expelling the ghost for another minute.

“Okay,” Jo says, eyeing the intense shaking of Anna's hands. “How 'bout you help me sit up, and I'll take over? Yeah? Okay.” With Anna's help, she gets partially upright with the wall behind her to prop her up. Control of the gun is returned to her, and she sits with it held ready, eyes scanning the room over and over again.

After a few minutes, Anna sinks down next to her on the floor. Their elbows brush. Jo keeps her limbs close to her body, unsure if their boundaries have changed after the last several minutes.

Sounds of the haunted house continuing on below them float up through the floor: screams; laughter; running feet.

Eventually, Anna says, “So, um. Ghosts are... a thing?”

Jo can't help but smile a little. “Hate to break it to you, but yeah,” she says, eyes still roving the empty room.

Next to her, she hears Anna blow out a breath. “Okay,” she says. Her calm sounds forced, but the fact that she's coherent enough to force a facade is honestly impressive on its own. “And you, um. You knew about this?”

“Ghosts in general, or the one in here?”

“I guess both?”

Jo nods. She chances a quick look at Anna, only to see Anna's eyes darting around the room in a panic. “Hey, Dean's probably taken care of the bones by now,” she says reassuringly. “The gun is just for insurance now.”

“Do I want to know what 'taken care of the bones' means?”

“Probably not,” Jo chuckles. “Anyway, yeah. Ghosts. My dad used to hunt 'em, and now I do sometimes too. This one in particular, all we'd heard was rumors, you know? And usually the ghost stories are just stories.” She shakes her head. “Can't get lucky all the time, I guess.”

Anna's quiet a moment. Then: “Hang on. Your dad used to... I thought you said your dad was a cop? And that you wanted to be just like him? Was all that 'protecting people' stuff total crap?”

Jo's eyes jump to Anna, worried. “What? No! I mean, he didn't used to be a cop, because of the whole... hunting monsters thing, but I do want to be like him. And hunting, man—hunting's about protecting people. Maybe even more than being a cop. I mean, not to freak you out, but people could've died in this house if we hadn't taken care of that ghost.”

Anna chews on her lip. “You are sure it's taken care of, right?”

“Pretty sure.”

Anna's eyebrows rise. “Yeah, get your eyes back on the ghost-infested room until you're sure-sure,” she orders.

Smiling, Jo complies.

  


So, Dean's a total idiot. No surprise there, but seriously. Apparently he “forgot” to text her to let her know that old Mrs. Gold had been properly fried, and then stopped in for some pie before he bothered to come check the room. Meaning Jo and Anna sat up there, Jo bored, Anna terrified, for approximately forty minutes longer than necessary. Jo's gonna kick his freakin' ass.

Okay, well. The ass-kicking can wait until Anna's tucked into bed. Jo's bed, because she's too shaken to go home on her own. Jo has solemnly sworn that there'll be no funny business, but her stomach still tingles happily at the thought of her sheets being warm with Anna's body heat.

For now, Jo sits on a stool at the Roadhouse bar, kicking her feet, cradling a cup of cocoa, and glaring at Dean like she can send a bullet through him just with the force of her gaze. Practiced at ignoring her, Dean finds an open bag of potato chips under the bar and digs in, idling off to the empty pool table. At this hour, the three of them are the only ones in the bar. Ash is out drinking somewhere else. Mom is out to a late dinner with Victor—a fancy dinner, with like, champagne glasses and hopefully diamond rings and everything. And Anna and Jo are sitting at the bar, hot cocoa in hand. Hot cocoa does wonders for monster-induced terror.

“Doin' okay?” Jo asks Anna quietly.

Anna looks up from her own cocoa; she's clinging to the mug like it'll fly away if she doesn't hang on. The tip of her nose is pink with cold. “I think so,” she says. “As okay as I could be right now, you know?”

Jo nods. “Do you want me to get you anything else? We've got, um, more blankets, or more cocoa if you're out, or... anything else?”

Anna shakes her head, smiling a little. “No, thanks. Actually, I think I'll turn in soon. Do you have an extra toothbrush, maybe?”

“Oh!” Jo says, jumping up. “Yeah, I'll just go dig one up for you.” She shakes out her hands as she walks to the bathroom, trying to shake out some of her jitteriness too. There's no need to get worked up about any of this. Anna knows about hunting, and she just saw her first ghost, and freaking out on her won't accomplish anything. After tonight, she'll almost certainly drift away from Jo, say, “it's been nice, but I just don't think I can do... _this_ ,”—and yeah, that's gonna suck, but mother hen-ing her right now won't change a thing.

A chin rests on Jo's shoulder just as she's unwrapping the fresh toothbrush; “Hi,” Anna says.

“Hey,” Jo says, handing the toothbrush behind her. Anna takes it, as well as the toothpaste Jo passes her, and then they're both brushing their teeth together over the sink, which is weirdly domestic after the night they've had. Their foreheads nearly collide when they both go to spit at the same time, and Anna lets out a muffled, pasty giggle, and Jo can't stop smiling while she tugs on a tank top and sweatpants to sleep.

Jo climbs into bed, because Anna insisted there was no reason for her to set up a pad on the floor when her bed is easily wide enough to fit both of them. Her sheets are cool. She shifts her legs; she hopes the sheets aren't too scratchy for Anna. She doesn't think they're bad, herself, but what if Anna's used to better? She's from a family of _doctors_ , for—

“Hey,” Anna whispers, lifting the blankets and climbing under. In one of Jo's oversized shirts and a pair of Ash's cleanest boxer shorts, she looks thin and tired.

“Hey,” Jo echoes, offering a smile.

Anna settles herself on her side, facing Jo, hands tucked to her chest. Jo turns onto her side to face Anna. It's dark, but not too dark to see each other's faces. Anna's eyes are big and round. Her breaths are quiet and steady. Jo feels warm inside, even as worry about Anna leaving makes her feel sick.

“Hey,” she says again, “um. Okay, will you hang with me for just a sec?”

Anna nods, frowning a little. Jo takes a breath, nods to herself.

“Okay, um, I know this—I know this might be kinda weird, but I feel like—I feel like I have to say it, okay? In case you—in case you—” Jo shakes her head. “Um. Okay. Um, I just want you to know that—that you're. You're a really amazing person, and I hope you get to keep pursuing your art and I hope that makes you happy. And, I mean, it's freaking inspiring that you ran off to do your own thing and that you're going after what you want, and you're—“ Jo can feel her face heating up “—you're brave—you're way braver than me—and you're doing things with your life, and just—” Jo shakes her head hard, closing her eyes. God, this is so stupid. Jo doesn't do _feelings_ , and stuff. But she couldn't just—she couldn't just let Anna _go_ without saying anything; she doesn't usually like people, and definitely not after knowing them for two months, and Anna is—Anna is—Anna is trailing her fingertips feather-light down Jo's cheekbone, cupping her jaw and staring at her _way_ too intently for Jo's comfort.

“You think I'm going to leave,” Anna says simply. She smiles lightly. Jo feels like she just got hit in the chest with a salt round. “I'm not going anywhere,” Anna says slowly. “Didn't I tell you that?”

Jo manages a half-hearted smile. “That was before all the monstery stuff,” she says dismally.

Anna rolls her eyes; her smile grows. “Okay, so now I know that monsters are real. Would my smartest move really be to run _away_ from the girl who knows how to take them down?”

“Fair point,” Jo admits in a whisper, smiling. Anna smiles back, eyes soft. She strokes the curve of Jo's cheekbone with her fingers, pushes herself up on one arm, leans down—

Jo's phone vibrates with a text, buzzing loudly against the wood of the bedside table. She huffs. Anna giggles, and flops back onto her own side of the bed while Jo fumbles with her phone.

The text is from Victor. A huge grin strains Jo's cheeks.

 _She said yes!_ says the text.

“What is it?” Anna asks.

“Oh, it's—my mom's boyfriend. He just proposed!”

“Oh my gosh! And?”

Jo makes a face. “And I'm officially gonna have a stepdad.” Anna laughs brightly.

As soon as Jo's set her phone down, Anna presses Jo into the bed by her shoulders and kisses her, first insistent, then lazier as she eases them both back onto their sides. They kiss, soft and warm and _hey, we're alive, we're together, that's cool_.

An indeterminate amount of time later, they pull apart with a quiet, slick noise, and Anna smiles, rubbing the tip of her nose against Jo's. “You know,” she says, “to be fair, you did a pretty poor job actually defending me from that ghost tonight.”

Jo laughs. “Oh?”

“Yes!” Anna grins. “Come on, you made me shoot the thing myself!”

“Oh, I was sure you had it handled.”

Anna giggles, ducking her head into Jo's neck. “I'm pretty sure it's a miracle I didn't shoot my own foot off.”

“Well, thank God for that one,” Jo says emphatically.

More light laughter. Then there's a tongue flicking at Jo's collarbone, and Jo rolls on top of Anna and sits up a little.

“I thought we said no funny business,” she says sternly.

“Oh, right yes,” Anna says, nodding seriously. “Okay.”

Jo leans down for a short kiss. “Another time, okay?” she promises. “You need to get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” Anna agrees. “I'm kind of exhausted. Who knew how much it takes out of you to nearly die?”

“Well, don't get used to it. I won't be so lazy about protecting you next time.”

“Oh, god. Don't tell me there's gonna be a next time,” Anna groans.

“Sure you wanna stick around?”

Jo's smile is a little tight—Anna sees right through it. Her face goes soft. She taps Jo's leg to get her to lie down on her own side of the bed, then arranges herself on her side to face Jo again. “I'm not going anywhere,” she whispers.

Jo closes her eyes. “You promise?” she asks in a tiny voice.

“Promise," Anna whispers.


End file.
